"Big Jim" Rennie comes to mind
If you have read the Stephen King book "Under the dome" you know whom I speak of.
Guess King Battistelli's plan to fix the Euro Patent Office. Yep, give himself more power
The president of the European Patent Office has responded to a formal rebuke of efforts to impose his will on the organization by asking for more power. The man who last week was called a disgrace to his country in the French National Assembly has been accused of targeting EPO staff who opposed his reforms and of running sham …
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Thursday 8th December 2016 08:58 GMT AndyS
Ways to get rid of him
The article mentions two ways - end of contract, and agreement of all 38 member states.
For the former, what date is this currently set to? I assume it is a fair bit in the future (or not even set).
So to the second, what is stopping that happening? He's French, and they don't seem to like him. You don't normally call your high-level diplomats a "disgrace to [their] country" if they are in the good books. So assuming they back dumping him, wouldn't the other 37 be persuadable?
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Thursday 8th December 2016 13:55 GMT druck
Re: Ways to get rid of him
They did try other ways of getting rid of him such as cutting the brakes on his bike. But for full comedy effect, they should have suspended a grand piano over the bike, and cut the rope to that.
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Thursday 8th December 2016 09:24 GMT imanidiot
Re: Ways to get rid of him
The short of it is: Politics.
Voting to fire the head of an international organisation is likely to result in a lot of shenanigans in terms of who gets to replace the fired person, who votes to keep him and who votes him out, future diplomatic relations between countries, etc. You can be sure there is a lot of backroom haggling going on right now to see who does and doesn't support voting him out, and convincing those who don't want to vote him out (For fear of angering some other country and preventing them from getting one of their countrymen into a high level position somewhere) to get on board. This vote is not going to happen until the backroom fenagling has resulted in a certain majority vote one way or the other. Until then all those questioned will pretend it's all sunshine and rainbows.
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Thursday 8th December 2016 21:37 GMT Fungus Bob
Re: Ways to get rid of him
"Voting to fire the head of an international organisation is likely to result in a lot of shenanigans in terms of who gets to replace the fired person"
Since he's French, why not let them decide. The worst they could do is replace him with their favorite comic genius - Jerry Lewis.
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Thursday 8th December 2016 12:08 GMT AndyS
Re: Ways to get rid of him
>There are other ways, but I believe most are illegal...
Sadly we don't have what Emperor Trump referred to as "the second amendment folks" over on this side of the pond.
Even more sadly, it appears they may not be as active on the Left of the pond as Trump himself was previously hoping, either.
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Thursday 8th December 2016 09:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Do they not have...
Hard to enact gross misconduct when the hearing is stuffed full of KBs cronies and the outcome is predetermined as no case to answer.
Also with all countries having to agree to remove him - unlikely to happen. There is so many issues that require 100% member approval that the low hanging fruit is targeted. It only requires one country to back him, maybe in a back scratching exercise and he stays.
I just can't understand the mentality of wishing to stay in the role - I guess it is a siege mentality. How the company can be expected to operate in any significant way towards its actual purpose is beyond me.
It needs more powerful oversight and a better constitution.
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Thursday 8th December 2016 13:23 GMT AndyS
Re: Do they not have...
> If all the staff that are so upset just resign on mass the resulting mess will force the hands of the governments involved
I was thinking this too, but then, maybe it wouldn't work? Maybe the EPO would just kind of, stop functioning. National bodies would pick up the slack, and the situation would resolve in a few years when his contract ended anyway.
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Thursday 8th December 2016 13:26 GMT Mephistro
Re: Do they not have...(@ AC)
"Also with all countries having to agree to remove him..."
At first read I also misinterpreted this paragraph in the article: "...who can only be fired before his term ends by the collective will of the EPO's 38-member state Administrative Council".
It's a little bit convoluted, but the way I understand it, it means that the Council as a whole has to reach a decision, not that every member of the council has to agree with the decision.
I'm not in the mood to study the EPO rules* and find whether this is the case or not, so the article might need to be corrected.
Note*: Not now nor never! :-P
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Thursday 8th December 2016 11:17 GMT Dave 15
Normal
Put someone unsuitable in charge and when they show they are acting against the interests of others fail to act and you end up with nothing.
Brings to mind Nokia with Elop, HBOS and Goodwin, every British government and their PMs since 1945.
No one seems willing to turn round and deal with the people at the top who take massive salaries for their massive responsibility, then fail and still keep taking the salary while blaming every one else. SACK THEM (better still hang them)
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Thursday 8th December 2016 18:29 GMT mstreet
Re: Sooooociopaaaaath...
This is pretty much from what I've seen and heard the last few decades. Seems to me almost all people in a position of power these days are sociopaths. Not surprising though when you consider the people running the system are almost exclusively lawyers and career politicians.
Why should we be surprised that members of the (practically by definition) most untrustworthy professions on earth, have come up with a system that protects the corrupt, the liars and the cheats.
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Friday 9th December 2016 00:05 GMT Bakker
Fehler
Minor correction - he isn't planning to limit his selection to staff committee members, he actually states that it will be from all eligible staff members (you seem to quote from an old document). So his scope for finding 'the right sort' is broader and almost limitless. No need to pick someone with general staff support.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
